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How to: Escape Google's Supplemental Index

tropicalseo.com — In the past 6 months Google has become much more selective about which web pages to include in its main index--many pages are listed only in the "supplemental index", which is penalized in most search results. Andy Hagans gives 5 tips to ensure a new web site gets fully listed in Google's main index.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 12, 2007

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  • stokelake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yes google does take meta tags into account but they dont give the meta description and meta keywords much importance. The title tag is very important to google's ranking. Also the meta description is important for human's, if written correctly they can increase the CTR (click through rate).
  • Boulevard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Wow, I even have some supplementals on my site! I never even knew that existed! But at least, I can get that to go away..hopefully.
  • TiKoZ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5
    Tropical SEO » How to: Escape Google’s Supplemental Index





    Lol he should take a look to his own blog for some advices.
  • genckas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Great suggestions.
    I wonder how the quality of meta tags has improved after Google said it doesn't consider them in its results...

    Btw, does Google now take meta tags into account?
  • bonez05, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4are you using site:www.example.com? you should see some for just about everybody near the last pages of the index.
  • bierce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Supplemental" is very real - it is an effective PR of -1. All other pages in the main index will be displayed before the first supplemental page.
  • animalmuther76, on 07/30/2008, -0/+1how is it a bad sign for digg if stories digg users are interested in make it to the front page? isn't that the whole idea

  • Nanobe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, Google does take meta tags into account, at least to some extent. I provide a meta "description" for just about every page on my site, and if you search the site on Google, you'll usually see exactly the contents of that meta element as the snippet with each result.
  • ldkronos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm certainly not saying this doesn't exist, but I agree with fkxfkx in saying that I've NEVER seen this before. The linked article doesn't even provide an example search query. I found a couple pages with example search queries, but when I tried them I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

    If the author wants to blog about this, would it be that hard to include a screenshot so that everyone at least knows what is being discussed?
  • scoreboard27, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2How much do you think the word "Supplemental" next to your site affects click-thru rates to your site? Most users don't know what the Supplemental Index is, but they're probably smart enough to figure out that it ain't good. Just another reason to take care of this problem...and soon...if it affects your site's indexing.
  • animalmuther76, on 07/30/2008, -0/+1still missing the point, if peeps are intrested in something (like seo) and those stories make it to the front page, thats digg working exactly as it should and is good. Just because you arent intrested in seo doesnt mean others arent, thats a bit like saying how did dubba bush get to be president when i didnt vote for him. I find seo very intresting.
  • TiKoZ, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2oops, i meant to copy his html header.. just view source, i'll get the point.
  • Mr.Scientist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I don't believe that enough people are interested in SEO stories to explain the high frequency with which they make the homepage. It's not a shot in the dark, there are good reasons to believe that it is a result of manipulation. It has nothing to do with my disliking black hat SEO. It's in Digg users' best interest not to reward people who outright advocate Digg manipulation. The low digg count, the type and number of comments and the temporal alignment of the diggs in the comments all point to manipulation. That doesn't mean that nobody is interested in SEO. Heck, I am interested in what these bastards do, simply to be able to defend against them, but I know that diggs help them, so I don't digg these stories.
  • Mr.Scientist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0First of all, I only listed that possibility for completeness' sake. There are many hints that SEO-***** are indeed successfully gaming the system and users are not actually interested in these stories. For example: SEO stories often make it to the homepage, but they get relatively few diggs when they arrive there.

    Second, if a significant percentage of Digg-users were really interested in the kind of search engine optimization that these stories promote, it would repel normal users. These stories treat users like an exploitable resource which the webmaster can and should manipulate to his advantage. For example, the person behind this story explains (in a related article) how to game Digg and avoid the countermeasures that Digg already has. If that is the kind of people you hang out with, I don't want your story recommendations. SEO people are the arms dealers and mercenaries of the information age.
  • Mr.Scientist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0He is following his own advice: The article has a link to an article on linkbaiting which specifically mentions Digg and how to game it. "How to..." is one of the suggested title patterns that incite links and get diggs. Apparently it's working, the story made it to the homepage.
  • Mr.Scientist, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2How to tell that Digg is facing a hard problem: There's hardly a day without a homepage link to an SEO site. This means one of two things: Digg users are interested in search engine optimization or the optimizers are successfully gaming the Digg rating system. Neither is a good sign for Digg's future.
  • fkxfkx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I have not yet seen the word supplemental yet on any search on any site, mine or anyone elses.

    Maybe this is something google does to mess with spammermasters or overly obsessive types?

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